Reyer, Ernest (1823–1909)

French composer. He also worked as a music critic, becoming a champion of Wagner and the new French school. His operas Sigurd and Salammbô show inevitable indebtedness to Wagner but also reveal a Gallic charm and vitality.

He studied music at the Free School of Music at Marseille, but showed no exceptional promise. At the age of 16 he was sent to live with an uncle at Algiers. There he began to compose songs and other pieces, and in 1847 succeeded in having a Mass performed at the cathedral. In 1848 he went to Paris and studied with his aunt, the composer Louise Farrenc. He met Flaubert and Gautier, with whom he shared an interest in oriental subjects, and they provided him with subjects for his works. He became a critic in the 1850s and in 1871 succeeded Joseph d'Ortigue as music critic to the Journal des débats.

Works Opera and stage operas Maître Wolfram (1854), La Statue (1861), Erostrate, Sigurd (on the Nibelung Saga, 1884), Salammbô (after Flaubert, 1890); ballet-pantomime Sacountala (after Malidasa, 1858).

Orchestral and choral symphonic ode Le Sélam (words by Gautier), dramatic cantata Victoire, L'Hymne du Rhin for soprano, chorus, and orchestra (1865); hymn L'Union des Arts; Ave Maria, Salve Regina, and O Salutaris; La Madeleine au désert for baritone and orchestra (1874); male-voice choruses.

Other piano pieces, songs.